


Summer of Salvation

by firefliesforlanterns



Category: bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/F, Forgiveness, Gen, Healing, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Road Trips, again theres no actual ivy/jason or ivy/matt just talking abt the past, bi matt bi ivy lesbian nadia and of course our favorite gays, eventually that is >;), everyone from st cecilias is gay, everyone is happy and okay, jeez this sounds darker than it is i promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-21 17:40:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8254664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefliesforlanterns/pseuds/firefliesforlanterns
Summary: After their graduation and the debacle that was the end of their senior year, Peter, Jason, Nadia, Ivy and Matt leave everything behind to go on a road trip. They have no destination, no purpose: all they're doing is getting out of their lives, just for a bit. Jason-survives-Ivy-isn't-pregnant AU.





	

The trip was never planned out. It just sort of… happened.   
  
It had been about a month after school ended. Just a normal, lazy summer evening, the kind of night you hear about in a love song, or a romantic play. A warm night with a gentle breeze, a soft wind that blew through the two boys’ hair as they lay together on the porch. With Claire at work and her boyfriend out of town, they had the house and the whole evening to themselves. The out-of-sight crickets had just begun to sing their songs when a familiar old, beat-up Chevy showed up at the Simmonds household. Peter and Jason had just been lying on the front porch. Peter’s head was resting on Jason’s lap, Jason was playing with Peter’s hair. Upon seeing the car he sat up straight, nearly knocking his head into Jason’s jaw, earning him a glare and an eyebrow raise. “What was that for?”   
  
Embarrassment and guilt crashed over Peter like a wave. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Jason, even if it was by accident. “Uh, that’s Ivy’s car, right? And I think your sister’s in the passenger seat. I haven’t seen them since graduation, so I just…”   
  
Jason’s eyes lit up. “Nadia?” he asked, the hope that he’d see his sister showing in his voice. His blue eyes narrowed at the car, trying to make out the silhouettes inside. “And Ivy? Are you sure?”   
  
The sunset’s glare nearly blocked Peter’s view of the figure getting out of the car from the driver’s side door. As she came closer, he nodded. “Yeah, that’s definitely Ivy.”   
  
The tall, unmistakable Ivy Robinson walked up to the porch, her heeled sandals clacking on the old dusty-blue wood planks. Almost no changes had touched her since graduation: her hair was still long and heavy on her shoulders, her eyes still the same sad, cloudy grey-green. Although she was out of breath and distraught, she returned the hugs she received from Peter and Jason. “Good to see you again,” said Jason, a wide smile spreading across his face. “What brings you here?”   
  
“Right, uh,” Ivy fiddled with the small gold pendant that hung around her neck, a habit that she’d had for as long as Peter had known her. “I know this is super random and out-of-the-blue but you weren’t answering my calls and so, well… Nadia kinda pissed off your mom and dad, Jason. So we’re getting the hell out of here. Are you two in?”   
  
“Where are you going?” asked Peter.   
  
Ivy shrugged. “Not sure. All I know is that the McConnells are assholes. Not you, Jason,” she added with a glance at him. “But yeah, Nadia’s a real mess. She’s trying to hide it, but…” Ivy trailed off. “I can tell she just needs to leave for a while. What do you say?”   
  
Peter looked at Jason, studying his face for signs of refusal, sure that Jason didn’t want to throw caution to the wind and leave town so soon after he had just got returned to his normal life. “Are we in? We’ll need some time to get our stuff ready, that’s for sure. What do you think, Jay?”   
  
Jason shrugged, giving a look of indifference. “I’ll go,” he said. “Why not?”   
  
Peter was taken aback. “Oh, uh, okay. We can go get our stuff, I guess, then. We’ll be back in a few, alright Ivy?”   
  
Ivy gave the two of them a thumbs-up, turning back to the porch stairs. “Sounds good. I’ll wait in the car with Nadia.”   
  
“Jason, what are you doing? You just got back from the hospital two weeks ago, didn’t you? You’re still healing, and don’t you have to keep your appointments?” Peter hissed, trying to keep his voice low as they walked inside.   
  
Jason looked at Peter as he began to stuff Peter’s shirts into his old backpack. “Don’t bring that up again, first of all, and second, just let it happen. Why not go? Why not live a little? I love it here, but man, can you imagine us stargazing on the roof of that old Chevy? It’ll be a chance to escape, to be free-- to be us.”   
  
“Shit,” murmured Peter, blushing furiously. Jason’s words were powerful, and he was playing Peter’s hopeless romantic personality like he’d play Claire’s old guitar on rainy nights. “There you go again, being cute and unbelievable. I’ll pack up some food for us.”   
  
Jason laughed. “Not anything we won’t be able to finish after a few days. I’m planning on being on the road for a long time.”   


  
  
When the boys returned to the car, Ivy nearly choked in surprise.   
  
They were carrying bags of food and clothes, sleeping bags and tangled webs of phone chargers. _Leave it to Peter to overprepare_ , she thought with a smile. Jason had a worn leather guitar case covered in stickers in his arms, and was trying to fit it into the sedan’s trunk along with everything else. Surprisingly, the trunk held everything and even had a small amount of space left. Jason and Peter both climbed into the back seat, bringing with them a large bag of tortilla chips. Jason attempted to hug Nadia from behind, but she laughed and rolled her eyes. “Not happening, Jason. You can hug me when we get out of the car.”    
  
Jason snorted. “Fair enough.”   
  
Ivy turned the keys and started the old blue car. It grumbled for a few moments, then sprang to life with a mechanical purr. She grabbed an artfully decorated tape labeled ‘cecilia’s crew road trip mix #1’ off of the dashboard and slid it into the car’s cassette deck. The tape whirred, then began to play the opening song. The familiar bright electric piano opening of “Don’t Stop Believin’” flooded the car with music. “All right, ladies and gents,” she said as she fastened her seat belt. “Let’s get this show on the road!”   
  
Their elation, however, was short-lived. It had only been a few minutes on the freeway, just a minute into the third song, when Nadia suddenly shook Ivy and jolted her out of the rhythms and notes. “Turn back.”   
  
“Why?” asked Ivy, over Peter and Jason’s loud singing. “I don’t think we’ve forgotten anything, have we? Jason and Peter brought a ton of stuff.”   
  
Nadia sighed. “Ivy, where are we going to sleep?”   
  
Ivy had to restrain herself from slamming her foot down on the brake pedal. “Shit!” she yelled.    
  
“Hey, what’s wrong?” asked Jason from the back, taking a break from showing off his vocal prowess.    
  
“We need sleep,” said Ivy, her brain short-circuiting as she tried to find the closest exit.   
  
“I’m so confused,” muttered Peter, his mouth clearly full of corn chips.   
  
“Do you guys know anyone who has camping equipment?” she asked. “I can’t say I do, and it’s not like we have the McConnell family to lend us some cash.”   
  
“Matt,” said Jason and Nadia at the same time, as Peter said “I know one person, but I’d rather not bring them unless it’s absolutely necessary.”   
  
“Oh, Christ, he’s the one I don’t want to bring.”   
  
Ivy pondered the facts as she drove up the exit ramp. She wasn’t against Matt going with them, but she really wasn’t particularly for it either. They had cleared some things up, but she was still wary of him and would feel better if she knew everyone was alright with his presence. Still, it seemed like he should go: after all, the five of them were all friends for the majority of their senior year. In addition, the Lloyd family was loaded. They could probably get enough cash from Matt to stay at at least a few hotels along their way.   
  
“So, is anyone completely and utterly against Matt coming along?” she asked, turning down the music. “Because let’s face it: he’s really our only option at this point.”   
  
“Not me,” said Nadia, while Jason shook his head. Peter grumbled a bit to himself. It was understandable that Peter would be uncomfortable with him.    
  
“Peter? You good?” she asked, hoping to get a coherent response. He wasn’t even trying to hide that he didn’t want Matt there at this point. She knew why, but all the same: Matt had money and camping supplies, and he was really the only one they knew who did.   
  
“Well, I’m outnumbered, so what does it matter?” Peter said in a tone dripping with sarcasm. “It’s not like, you know, he hurt all of us terribly and made life hellish or anything.” He crossed his arms and sat back in his seat.   
  
The car grew uncomfortably silent after Peter’s angry remarks, even with the flawless blended vocals echoing in the background. Not even Ivy’s soft ‘I am yours, and you are mine’, a feeble attempt to bring the others back to singing, dented the silence.   
  
When they pulled up at the Lloyd household, Peter bolted from the car, mumbling about “needing a moment”. Jason shook his head. “I’ll go and talk to him,” he said, following after him.   
  
Ivy rang the doorbell, her hand on her hip. She was prepared for trouble. Whoever answered the door would be suspicious as to why she was there, as she and Matt had had an incredibly messy break-up after two short months of dating when they were sophomores. They had still flirted over the following years, but Ivy had never wanted to get back together with Matt. Anything she’d done with him that was more than polite conversation or casual, joking flirting hadn’t been her: it was the drugs or the alcohol talking, the substances she relied on to keep her going through her hellish last year of high school. The only ways, besides her art, that she could escape the taunts and stares and slipping grades.   
  
The door creaked open, revealing a Matt that she’d never seen before: his usually combed and neat hair was messy, his face was covered in patchy stubble. He wasn’t wearing a suit and tie like he always had before, instead, he sported sweatpants and a tour t-shirt for a band that Ivy’d never heard of before. He furrowed his eyebrows at her, and reached to close the door with a downward glance that conveyed so much: guilt, shame, vengeance, regret.    
  
Without even thinking, Ivy put her hand up to stop him. “Wait.”   
  
“What?” His voice was lower and hoarser than she knew it to be, the sound of a voice broken by mistakes of the past and fear of the future. “Why are you here?”   
  
“Well, we need your help.” Her golden leaf that hung around her neck slipped into her fingers once again. She’d taken a different necklace with her: the old cross that she’d wear at school wasn’t her. It was who she’d be for nine months every year to go to the best school that gave her a scholarship to learn there. The rippled leaf in her hand calmed her so much more than the cold, smooth cross ever did. “You have camping equipment, don’t you?”   
  
His eyebrows grew even more knit together as he nodded. “Yeah, I do. But...” he stared into the distance. “Why?”   
  
“Because,” Ivy stopped, tripping over her words. “Uh, Matt, we--”   
  
“We?” His expression shifted ever so slightly from one of doubt and skepticism to one of confusion and wonder.   
  
“We, as in--” she’d sealed her fate now: she could see that it was hard for him to even meet with her. What would happen if he knew that he’d be with Jason and Peter and Nadia? “Well, N-nadia and I,” she began. “We decided to go and get away from everything, just for a while, and we brought--”   
  
“Peter and Jason?” he cut her off, but his tone of voice when he said their names wasn’t what she had expected. It started angry and burning, like the way he’d tried to close the door on Ivy when she first appeared to him that day. However, midway through the names of her closest friends, it shifted to something else. Something longing, something tinged with regret. Something that didn’t mean that Matt had outright refused her quite yet.   
  
“W-well, yeah,” she stuttered. “They’re with us too.”   
  
Matt’s eyes were full of a sad, strange, eager light. A light of desire and need, a light of the hope for second chances that one had thought they’d never receive. “I’ll come along,” fell the soft words from his mouth. “My tents and stuff are in the garage. It’ll just be a few minutes for me to pack. I can get money stuff set up with my parents, too.”   
  
“Sounds good. Meet us at the car when you’re ready to go.” Ivy turned around to go back to Nadia, when Matt’s voice called out to her.   
  
“Hey,” he said, looking at the ground. “Can we… put things behind us? Put that mess from sophomore year and last year and just be neutral with each other? You and I?”   
  
Ivy gave him a respectful nod, keeing a serious face. “I think we can. I think that’d be best. No romance, no nothing. A clean slate, yeah?”   
  
Matt gave her a half-smile. “Yeah. I’ll get my stuff.”   


  
  
“Look, Peter, it’s fine.” Jason sat on the curb, trying to convince the anger and bitterness out of Peter. “I’d rather he not be there either, but really. We need his help.”   
  
Peter raised his eyebrows, giving Jason a condescending look. “Yeah, he’s really helped us out in the past before, huh?”   
  
An exasperated sigh escaped Jason’s lips. “Look, Peter, I said not to talk about it.”   
  
“And where will that get you? It’s not like missing a goal or messing up a line in a song, you can’t just gloss over it like nothing happened! Jason, I almost--” His voice broke, crossing over the paper-thin between anger and sadness. “I almost lost you. Because I thought I could trust him, and I was wrong. You’re not something I can afford to lose, don’t you see that?”   
  
“Peter, we’re fine! We’re out of Catholic school, away from my parents, your mother has agreed to keep us a secret and we’re escaping right now. Do you think that Matt is going to shout ‘PETER AND JASON ARE GAY’ out the window of Ivy’s car to strangers on the street? What good will that do for him? The people in the car are the only ones that matter, and they don’t care. They know. And it’s okay.”   
  
“Jason, listen. You have to listen.” Peter was quieter, shaking his head. “You aren’t fine. You can’t possibly be fine, we’re already ditching your therapist and we’re bringing along someone who could hurt you. I can’t feel comfortable with that, I just can’t.”   
  
Jason could only sit in a stunned silence. He could tell that this wasn’t just Peter being stubborn: Peter was saying that he loved him. Peter’s love, that which was once soft and naive, now soared with anger and a desire to protect the person he loved the most. He knew that Peter loved him, of course: Peter said most of the “I love you”s in their relationship. Nonetheless, his newfound strength to keep Jason from harm only cemented those “I love you”s into place.   
  
“All right,” he said, slowly. “How about a compromise: if I get bad, because of Matt or otherwise, we’ll split from the group for a few days. Stay in a different hotel, use the camping equipment or something. We’ll work things out together, you and I. We can call them to come back for us. Does that work for you?”   
  
He waited, praying Peter would say yes, praying that this time, they’d really run away together. Peter sighed and gave him a short nod, wiping his misty eyes of their rageful tears. Jason put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Hey,” he said, kissing him lightly. “It’s gonna be all right. Nothing’s gonna stand in our way anymore.”   
  
Peter smiled, looking down at his shoes. “I suppose that’s the best thing to believe right now, isn’t it?”   
  
Jason nodded, standing up and offering his hand to Peter. Peter graciously accepted as Jason helped him up. He kept their fingers intertwined as they began to walk together, swinging their arms. “Come on. Ivy’s probably been waiting to get going.”   
  
For the first time in their short lives, they were finally going to escape.


End file.
